Sunday, September 9, 2007

Same Old Dolphins

The coaches may change, but the results stay the same. Once again the Dolphins have managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. In the NFL, there's a fine line between winning and losing. Any lost opportunity can come back and bite you in the end.

In today's Dolphins 16-13 overtime loss to Washington, Miami had a chance to win the game late in regulation. A couple of Trent Green passes to Chris Chambers brought the Dolphins inside the Redskin 10 yard line with less than a minute left. However a pair of penalties moved Dolphins so far back, they had to settle for a tying field goal to send the game to overtime. From that point, you just knew it wasn't going to end well for The Fish.

The Redskins ended up winning the coin toss and Clinton Portis ran all over a tired Dolphin defense in overtime, setting up the winning field goal. What bothers me about this game is the Dolphins were given every opportunity to win. Not only did the penalties near the end of regulation kill Miami. Dolphin receivers dropped 5 passes. One of the most crucial drops was by tight end David Martin, who was wide open on a third down during Miami's second to last possession of the 4th quarter. If Martin catches that pass, who know s how the game turns out. We will never know. But such is life in the NFL.

A few obersvations:

* Joey Porter was impressive in his first game in aqua and orange. For the first Porter actually hit somebody as a member of the Dolphins. The last time he hit anyone was Levi Jones at a Las Vegas casino.

* This game was vintage Chris Chambers. At times he makes great catches and big plays. But he continues to make you want to pull your hair out in agony when he drops easy passes when he's wide open.

* What's up with all the dropped balls? The Dolphin receivers dropped five passes, some of them crucial plays that ended up killing drives.

* Jason Taylor is still a beast. It never ceases to amaze me what he can do on the field. If he's not sacking quarterbacks and bringing down ball carriers in the backfield or even intercepting passes,Taylor showed a new dimension to his game. During the Redskins final play in reglation, Washington quarterback Jason Campbell fired a Hail Mary pass into the end zone. Taylor was back in the end zone on pass coverage and batted the pass away. Unfortunately, the pass ricocheted to Redskin receiver Antwaan Randel-El who nearly scored if not for a heads-up tackle by Taylor at the one-yard-line.

* Trent Green played okay. He didn't do anything to lose the game. Often he was betrayed by his teammates with drops and crucial holding penalties.

* Vernon Carey continues to be a work in progress at left tackle. He started out shakey, but played okay. But if the Dolphins are to become a contender again, this position needs to be upgraded and Carey should return to his natural position--right tackle.

* Ronnie Brown is never going to be the franchise player he was expected to be when he was selected as the 2nd overall pick in the 2005 NFL Draft. He's a decent to good player. But the fact is Brown has never been able to carry the load at any level he's played at except maybe high school. In college, he shared carries with Cadillac Wiliams at Auburn. During his rookie year, he split carries with Ricky Williams. By the way, Williams proved to be the better back. And now he's sharing the load with Jesse Chatman, who just two years ago, was out of football after he practically ate himself out of the league.

* Armando Salguero's prediction of a 10-6 season is looking more ridiculous by the moment.